Hidden
by paper-princess-94
Summary: Warning- spoilers from about chapter 570.   Luffy returned after Ace's death, but his crew have noticed a difference in him.


_**A/N **__Honestly, I'm going to stop uploading so much angst soon, this should be the last of it for a while :)_

_This is from the p.o.v. of one of the strawhat crew, put whoever you want into the narrators place, I think it reads differently depending on who you put in it so it's completely up to you.  
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When Luffy returned to us, sometime after the battle at Marine headquarters, when so many things changed, he tried to keep up the pretence of being unchanged. We could all tell the difference. It was in the way he walked, the way that he talked to strangers. Gone was his enthusiastic, almost puppy-like, greetings. The ones which would make people question whether he was really captain, whether he was really the one with the 300million bounty. Whether he was really the pirate who declared war on the government with just his small crew to fight beside him.

His behaviour had changed in ways so subtle that anyone else wouldn't notice, he ate less and tended to spend his time alone instead of how he had previously spent his days with various crewmembers. And when he smiled, it was still the same heart-breaking grin, but his eyes were veiled, hidden from even us as he tried to hide his silent pain.

He'd lost his innocence.

Seeing one of the men that he admired most in the world die before him, in his arms no less, had shaken his world right down to the foundations. He had been his target, the guiding light that had kept him constantly improving, always one step ahead of him. If he hadn't been able to stop that one superhuman from dying, he saw no way that he could achieve his goals. We saw it in his face; he had given up his dream of becoming pirate king.

The spark had died along with his brother.

But we had to hope it could be brought back, we all worked hard to cheer him up over the next few weeks, trying not to be obvious. Games, special food or just kind words and a peaceful place to sit. Nothing worked. If anything, he got worse. He seemed to sink into himself, his old bubbly personality eroded away by the shock of his loss.

It started to affect his health. He began to lose weight from his already gangly figure and seemed more prone to colds and sore throats. After returning from collecting supplies one day he began to complain about feeling ill. He was sent to bed to rest it off, it had always worked before, he'd never needed treatment for anything less than a life-threatening wound so the idea of our indestructible captain being ill enough to need treating would have been laughable under any other circumstances.

Not now. It was as though his mental suffering had manifested itself physically, and it hurt all of us to see him in such a weakened state.

He did recover, eventually, but he was still weak. Not up to fighting or training. We all kept an eye on him to make sure he was eating right, he was but for some reason which completely escaped us he still didn't gain any of his old weight back on. His old body of hardened muscle was gone, replaced by skin and bone and not much else.

One day, when he was supposed to be resting up in the crow's nest, I went to check on him, only to find him curled up on one of the benches, his arms wrapped around his tiny frame and tear tracks down his cheeks. He was still asleep, for which I was grateful, he got so little sleep these days that the miniscule amount he got was worth more than gold itself to his worn out and battered body.

I sunk down onto the bench beside his him and pulled his head into my lap, gently stroking his hair as he slept on. He shifted in his sleep and I found my hand now occupied by the side of his face, which I rubbed gently until the tell-tale signs of his tears were gone from his face and a slight smile had been coaxed onto his lips by my light caresses.

After about ten more minutes of sleep his eyes flickered open, for a moment he just looked at my face, but then he recognized me and scrambled backwards until he was in danger of falling off the end of the bench. I chuckled lightly.

"What's wrong, Luffy?" I asked kindly, hoping to finally get him to open up.

"Nothing, I'm fine." He answered, his defiant tone ruined by the slight crack in his voice from his earlier crying. He seemed to realise this and turned away to look out of the window.

I sighed, stood up and walked to stand beside him. When my hand fell on his shoulder he turned to look at me, unshed tears in his eyes. "It's ok to feel sad, Luffy." I smiled reassuringly at him, "It's not good for you to keep all your emotions bottled up, we're all worried about you…" I trailed off as I saw the first tear fall down his face.

I pulled him into a tight hug and he buried his face against my chest as I lowered us onto the bench, with him sat on my lap, my arms wrapped protectively around his now frail form. He shook pitifully and I could feel his tears soaking through my top. It didn't matter, he had taken a step in the right direction, he was displaying his emotions, just like he used to.

We stayed like that for some time, I gently rubbed his back as his tears dissolved into sobs and then into quiet hiccups which shook his body with every tremor. Eventually he pulled away from me and looked into my face. His red-rimmed bloodshot eyes a still trembling lip made me want to hold him for longer, but he obviously had something he wanted to say.

"I'm sorry, for making you worry." He said in a slightly shaky voice, I was about to answer that it wasn't his fault but he stopped me. "And, thank you, you and everyone else, for putting up with me and trying to cheer me up." He smiled sweetly, and seeing that smile, his true, genuine smile, made my heart glad.

I smiled back at him, "Luffy, there's no need to thank us, that's what friends do. You would have done the same for us."

"Yeah." He answered simply, before he let his head drop back onto my chest, my arms automatically wrapping around him as though he had pushed a button. I gently stroked his hair as we sat in the comfortable silence, I just enjoyed him being more like his old self as he slowly drifted off to sleep, a smile on his unconscious lips for the first time since they had been split up.


End file.
